Hi Lanc81,
Your father's Genetic Communities on Ancestry DNA are based on shared ancestors and their geographical homelands. If you open the tabs in the DNA Story you will see something like North West England & the Isle of Man (my own example) and a timeline. It states that 328,754 AncestryDNA members belong to this community. "You and the all the members of this community, are linked through shared ancestors. You probably have family who lived in this area for years - and maybe still do." In my example it then goes on to say " The more specific places within this region where your family was likely from - Lancashire". It may even suggest that your Featured Matches have a known connection to this area. In my case, I have three 3rd and 4th Cousins with this connection. I have been able to ascertain my link to all three of these individuals through their online trees. Now to be clear, I do not match 328,754 members but I have enough matches who in turn match others within the community network.
The Timeline element of the DNA Story delves into the specific history of the region. This can help build up a picture of the socio-economic factors that affected your ancestors. This can help explain migrations and job changes. If you scroll through it will also identify people in your tree who are born within the time period and geographical area. In my case, my 5th great grandmother, Sarah Smith, 1729-1812 lived in Northwich, Cheshire, covered within the North West England.
I also have a smaller DNA community in Europe. The Coastal Northwest Germany has only 175,393 members and my specific region is Osnabrueck. It covers a small area from Osnabrueck to Bielefeld, and centres on Buende, Kreis Herford. I can trace my mother's paternal line in the Buende region from the 17th-21st century.
So these communities give me an accurate picture of where my family is from using my DNA matches, their online trees and their network of DNA matches. Your father's DNA profile suggests Slovakia and Hungary - Western Preslov(sic) and Kosice, North Hungary and also Southern Poland. This suggests your father has DNA cousins who also have their roots in modern Slovakia, with a spread just into South Poland and North Hungary. You may not have any known Slovakian ancestors at the moment so this may have come as a surprise. Does the Community suggest any Featured Matches ? If so you can hopefully check out their online trees for clues about their European ancestry.
If you need further info on Ancestry DNA Story Communities check out Roberta Estes blog DNA_eXplained
https://dna-explained.com/2017/03/28/genetic-communities/ where you can find a link to the Ancestry White Paper on the subject.
Good luck!
pughcd
